Missing North Druid Hills Musician's Truck Found in North Texas

The truck of missing North Druid Hills musician Steven Marchi has been found in an impound lot in northern Texas.

Friends of the 43-year-old received a certified letter yesterday from the lot in Gainesville, TX, telling them Marchi's green 1999 Dodge Ram has been impounded there for about a month after it was found in a Walmart parking lot, said Kelley Hagen, one of Marchi's close friends who has been working with investigators since Marchi went missing Aug. 12. Gainesville is roughly an hour north of the Dallas-Forth Worth area.

The letter was sent to the home of Mike and Erin Mauzy in Illinois. Marchi, who was raised in Illinois and known to move around, put the Mauzys down as the contact address when the truck was registered there because he wanted important documents mailed to a stable address, Hagen said. Though Marchi has lived in Georgia for years, his truck was never registered here, and it still carries Illinois license plates.

The Mauzys could not immediately be reached for comment.

"I never thought they'd find the car," Hagen said. "It's definitely not Steve who drove the car there. I don't know why he’d be all the way in Texas without so much as a toothbrush. It's disappointing that they found his car without finding him."

The car remains impounded, according to a statement DeKalb County police released Sunday evening, and the department will work with Texas authorities to release the vehicle.

Marchi was last seen leaving his townhome at the intersection of Buford Highway and North Druid Hills Road on Aug. 12. He told his roommate Jeffrey Powell he was going out for a bit and never returned, but friends say Marchi took nothing to indicate he was leaving for very long. His cell phone and guitar, which he took everywhere, were left in his bedroom.

"It's his most valuable thing. He literally takes his guitar everywhere he goes," Hagen said. "If he was leaving for even more than a day, his guitar goes with him."

His debit card has also gone unused since then. Marchi's cell phone is registered to Hagan, and his bank notices are messaged to his phone, she said.

Marchi is an acoustic songwriter who has played in Atlanta venues including Eddie's Attic and Smith's Olde Bar. He's lived in Atlanta for several years with stints in between in Chicago and Los Angeles, where he moved to play his music for several months about two years ago, Hagen said. He also worked as a freelance masseuse.

Although Marchi left his home Aug. 12, Powell reported him missing Aug. 22 because he said he had no reason to believe anything was wrong for several days.

"He's pretty much a free spirit – that's why I waited," he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in August.

DeKalb County police are handling the case and have asked anyone with information to call their Special Victims Unit at 770-724-7710.

Stay tuned to North Druid Hills-Briarcliff Patch as we update the story.